


forest-sky/aurora-green

by schrodingers__cat



Series: forest-sky/aurora-green [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Character Study, Gen, If Nintendo won’t give me backstory, Minor Character Death, Reincarnation, ill write it myself, im kinda late to the fandom oh well, slight angst, slightly edited for better formatting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 22:31:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19343986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schrodingers__cat/pseuds/schrodingers__cat
Summary: The Captain has a son, and the kingdom has a Princess.





	forest-sky/aurora-green

**Author's Note:**

> _Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green,_   
>  _When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen._   
>  _Who told you so, dilly dilly, who told you so?_   
>  _'Twas mine own heart, dilly dilly, that told me so._

The Captain has a son.

His wife is a formerly-wandering healer from the wilds of Faron, and he is Castle Town born-and-bred, but she saved his life once. They’ve been inseparable since. It’s a wonderful story to tell at parties. 

And now the Captain has a son. 

The child is all he will talk about for a good long while, but no one can bring themselves to feel annoyed. The Captain’s nature is quiet and biting, and he’s kinder when he smiles and talks about his son. He’s neither gentler nor softer, he’s still all hard edges and cobalt eyes, but... he’s kinder. 

They name the boy Link, and they do not know why. 

The stories the knights and nurses are subjected to start out simple. He looks just like his father, his mother laughs. He smiles like his mother, says his father. His first word was ‘apple’ and his favorite color is green. 

The Captain introduces him to the royal family, and he waves and smiles. Now if only he’d bow, we’d be all set, laughs the King. He and the Captain are old friends. 

The Queen is pregnant, and as such is all motherly smiles and oh, can I hold him? When she does, she is struck by his forest-sky eyes, and ghosts whisper secrets into her ears. 

—————

The Princess is born with great fanfare, and she is named Zelda, as is tradition. The Captain and his wife are the recipients of the King’s stories, for he has no one else to tell them to. The Queen has already christened the child her little bird, and she has a little silver swallow on a necklace made for her.

—————

Link grows up shy and smiling, with his father’s ghost-shadow nature but his mother’s wild heart and cheerful disposition. He has a penchant for imagination and drawing. His battalion of imaginary friends includes everything from talking hats to field mice, but the only real constants are the little blue fairy and the wolf. Perhaps his mother would believe him when he insisted they were real, but blue fairies had vanished long ago, and no Hylian wolf would tolerate a child. 

His father hangs his drawings in the war room. The soldiers are charmed by the large red birds, assorted dragons, and multitudes of fluffy creatures. They are unsettled by the crawling hands and yellow-eyed faces. The more colorful of said faces has a large, black ‘X’ through it. The Captain finds it funny. His soldiers do not.

—————

Link’s mother finds no end to her joy when she discovers that he’s inherited her sight. She loses him once when he’s three, during a camping trip near the western mountains. Her husband had not been able to make it, a hundred duties after another piling up, as they were wont. She searches for hours.

She finally finds him giggling in a shallow pool of water, a gaggle of Koroks at his feet, and fairies braiding his hair.

She happily tells him every story she knows about the forest children for the rest of the night, while little eyes watch and listen.

—————

When the Captain takes him to temple for the first time, he has his hands over his ears for the entire service.

You should listen to the priestesses, his father chides.

I can’t, he says. The statue’s too loud.

...What’s she saying? his father asks.

She’s just singing, he winces, and she won’t stop.

—————

The Princess hears nothing from statues. She has no imaginary friends, and she only draws flowers.

But she is her mother’s daughter, through and through. From the moment she can comprehend them she loves stories, and books, and knowing. The Queen is a lover of culture and ancient things, and they visit many ruins together. 

Little Zelda functions in reality. In the tactile lines of long-lost code and the hardness of stone. Something so incomprehensible as the will of a goddess does not fit within her frame of mind. Her mother’s ghosts find no purchase in her perfectly-sanded walls.

The Queen takes Zelda to Gerudo Town twice a year, to meet her best friend Chieftess Urbosa. They gossip and drink safina tea and watch their little bird toddle around, a Gerudo-silk doll clutched in her fists. 

—————

The King and the Captain trade stories. Children are so strange, they chuckle. Zelda refuses to wear pink jewels, the King laughs, and the Captain shakes his head and tells how Link hid from the moon. 

—————

When the Princess is three years old, a Sheikah mystic comes to the castle, panting as though he’d run all the way from Necluda.

The prophecy, he wheezes. Do you not feel it? It is coming. 

The search for the Hero commences. 

The Princess begins to pray. 

—————

The Captain gives his son a wooden sword for the fun of it when he’s four years old. Link finds it fits well in his hands.

What’ve you been teaching that kid, Cap’n? a soldier asks.  
Absolutely nothing, the Captain responds with wonderment.

Link’s training begins that day. 

—————

The Captain’s son and the Princess play together once, and only once, and when they meet again neither of them will recall it. 

The Princess’ Sheikah bodyguard-nursemaid Impa is set to watch them in the Queen’s garden. They greet each other as old friends (Impa is almost certain they’ve never met), and ascend into imaginings with the speed of a Rito’s arrow. Link plays a knight with a scraggly stick for a sword, and Zelda is a Sheikah ‘ninja,’ throwing acorns at phantom monsters with gleeful abandon. 

When she climbs one of the willow trees, Impa makes no move to stop her. Even princesses must learn their lessons.

When she falls, sobbing, Link rushes to her side.

He does not say a word, but takes her hand and hums a few familiar notes. 

(It takes all of Impa’s considerable training to keep her composure.)

—————

The Captain takes his wife, his son, and his knights to the Zora’s Domain. His wife quickly befriends the healers, and they trade methods. The Zora warriors and knights line up to spar, each excited to test their skills against an unfamiliar opponent. 

Last in line is the Captain’s four-year-old son. The Zora saw him sparring with a Hylian knight earlier. They do not underestimate him.

He has never fought a spear-wielder before. He loses, but not before his ability is clearly displayed for half a kingdom to see.

He is sent off to play for the rest of the trip. The Captain will not stand to see his son made a soldier at four.

He finds himself with the Big Bad Bazz Brigade, and they wait for him to keep up in the water, because he is a fearsome opponent and a fiercer friend.

He gets caught in a current and washes downstream, as is inevitable for a child with half the swimming strength of a Zora infant.

The Crown Princess is practicing after thoroughly slicing through both the Hylian and Zora ranks. She is young, and only halfway through her growth, but she is powerful. She sees a little blonde child go rushing past her in the water, and she dives after him. There is blood on his face, and she heals the cut and the concussion with little effort. His eyes are wide and they remind her of luminous stones. She explains her healing magic with a smile. He drags her along to meet his mother. 

(She is pulled away before they reach her, but they will be good friends one day.)

The Crown Princess becomes rather fond of the excitable storm that is Link, and the rest of the visit is spent with them in tandem. She wonders how it’s possible for a child to receive so many scrapes all at once, and Link is happy to have a friend.

—————

One day, the Queen faints in her gardens. Her Sheikah are there in an instant, and she is taken up to her rooms. She will not leave them. 

Ghosts whisper doom to her ears, and they comfort her as she cries. They do not beckon her to join them. They do not want her to. Not yet. 

Ghosts have little choice in the matter.

When the Princess is six years old, her mother dies. (That’s what happens from her perspective, anyway.)

When the Princess is six years old, a nation loses its Queen.

The Kingdom is despondent.

The King more so. 

(When the Princess is six years old, she loses her father.)

Little Zelda is dry-eyed and hollow. She finds herself with an ache that will never entirely fade, and a hole that will never be filled.

The Captain, his wife, and his son are invited to the funeral of the Queen. It’s the last time the King will see the boy for a long while.

(It’s the last time he’ll see anything for a long while.)

—————

When Link is seven, the Zora’s Domain is attacked by a hoard of Lynels. Hyrule is their closest ally, and half of the kingdom’s knights are sent to provide aid. The Captain goes with them. His skills are invaluable.

The Captain begs his wife not to come with him, but the Zora healers are too exhausted to use their power. She takes twenty-seven hours to convince him. 

The Lynels are fought off. The Captain and his wife do not come home. 

The knights are left leaderless with a grieving seven-year-old. He has not said a word since the Lieutenant told him the news. He has not even cried.

The soldiers are mostly young men, living in barracks. They can’t take care of a child.

One of them knows where the old Captain ran off to once he retired, after training his successor. He takes Link there.

He lives a about a mile from the Woodland Stable, in a small settlement of Hylians, where most lived there simply because they always had. It is called Farosh, after the dragon. (No one knows why. He has always preferred the south.)

It takes the poor soldier three days to convince the old man to take Link on. He only agrees once he sees him sparring.

Talent like that can’t be wasted, the old man huffs. And without his father, there’ll be no one good enough to teach him at Castle Town.

(The knight tries not to be offended. He knows it’s true.)

—————

The King has been lost in a haze of grief for nearly two straight years. He has lost his wife, and now he has lost his Captain. He is losing his daughter, whom he left to mourn on her own.

By the time he remembers Link, his best friend’s only child is long gone. 

He turns his focus to his Kingdom. 

The Calamity is coming.

The Princess prays.

—————

At Farosh, Link is no longer the Captain’s son. He is the apprentice to a swordmaster long retired.

Old Sir Orca is cold, and he is harsh. He is not afraid to make a soldier out of a child. 

He is not unkind. Farosh’s residents like to believe that his worn-out heart was warmed by the quiet little boy in his home.

Only Sir Orca knows.

All of Link’s imaginary friends have gone away. All except the wolf, of course. Sometimes he still sees him, flickering on the edge of his vision. It’s comforting. 

The apprentice grows up solemn and shy, wary of strangers but known to friends as kind and adventurous, with a sarcastic twist to his words. He likes high places, and he eats like the apocalypse is tomorrow.

Orca does not tell him how much he is like his father. It pains him to think about, so he does not.

There is a little girl who lives at the Woodland Stable. Her name is Aryll, and Link is her hero. He calls her his baby sister. She calls him a jerk, and that’s as close to big brother as someone can get.

Her parents teach him to ride a horse. He does not need much teaching.

They give him one of their foals to raise as an eighth birthday gift. He names her after a long-forgotten goddess, and it feels right. 

—————

When the Princess is nine, the first Sheikah artifacts are uncovered. She finds her passion in the ruins. She finds them beautiful, and the blue that they glow is familiar and warm. The new Sheikah scientists, Purah and Robbie (her only friends) describe it as cold in their notes.

—————

Link finds himself drawn to the forests.

Those are the Lost Woods, boy, Orca huffs, and you will become nothing but bones. 

When he is eleven years old, he enters the forest anyway. He does not light a flame. The path is carved into him with wood and stone.

He does not go to the village. A voice says you’re not ready, not yet, so he plays hide and seek with the bones.

Orca finds him on the edge of the wood. His hair is intricately braided with silent princess petals, and the fog curls around him like he is an old friend.

Orca says nothing, but takes his wrist and drags him back home. The strength with which he grips him is more than enough.

Link says nothing either, but these sorts of silent conversations have become the norm.

Orca studies his forest-sky eyes. Surrounded by fog and leaves, embers in the air, they’d looked very, very old.

—————

Princess Zelda is cold. She stands in frigid pools and freezing wind. She lost her swallow necklace in the Temple of Time, and not even the Sheikah could find it again.

She is cold even at home. The fire in her hearth does nothing for the glares from her father, and his panic when he thinks she can’t see.

She finds warmth in the orange and blue glow of ancient technology. Every new discovery sends a thrill of excitement (and relief) through her.

—————

She is twelve, and she collapses in the Spring of Power.

Ironic, she says from Impa’s arms, that I am so powerless here.

—————

Link lays a flower on the little shrine. He smiles at the statue, and she smiles back.

—————

When Zelda is thirteen, she runs away. She runs to Kakariko village, because she has nowhere else to go, and she has always felt at home among the Sheikah. Her hands smell like chickaloo nuts, and her footsteps do not make a sound.

She is still caught by Impa. Impa is proud that she made it this far. 

She returns home with a small knife to keep in her bodice.

Your mother used to keep three, Impa shrugged. Why should you not have one? Here, I’ll show you how to hold it.

—————

When Link is fourteen, Orca takes him to the Zora’s Domain.

You’ve been begging to go for long enough, he mutters. And it will be good for you to learn more than the sword and bow.

When he arrives, he is taller than all of his old friends. They still wait for him to catch up in the water, but they do not wait as long.

Crown Princess Mipha is still young, but she is taller. She nearly towers over Link. She wonders, for how long? She did not inherit her father’s height.

She is confused by the softness of his voice, his somber expression. What happened to her little whirlwind?

She sees that it never left when she finds him hanging off of the throne room’s ceiling.

She does not heal scrapes, this visit. She heals cuts and bruises from a hundred spars.

She asks him what has happened since they saw each other last. They talk long into the night. 

—————

When the Princess is fourteen, she screams at her father for the first time. The King has known her to be strong-willed and stubborn, and her voice has always been known to echo down the halls, but she has never screamed. Princesses do not scream.

Zelda does not see the sky for a week. She feels like she’s losing little pieces of herself. Perhaps she is.

(Perhaps it is not her failure. Perhaps it is the failure of the grown, and their pride.)

The First Princess used to whisper about love to the Queen. Her little bird cannot hear her.

—————

When Link is fifteen, he finds himself in front of the Lost Woods once more. He takes a torch, as he saw Orca do, though he does not need one.

He thinks he sees fairies of every color dart between the branches. There is music in the air, in his ears, in his eyes and in his mouth and it feels like the color green and someone’s hands in his own. It tastes bittersweet, like his father’s shield on his back.

He reaches the little village, and it doesn’t feel quite like home, but it smells like it. Chattering Koroks and flitting fairies are suddenly still, and then they cry out in joy.

Welcome back, says the Deku Tree, and Link nods.

Are you ready?

The sword slides out easily. His heart aches at the shades of purple and blue on the hilt. He does not know why. 

He feels proud, and bitter, and determined. His smile is brittle as he sees his own eyes reflected in the sword’s sheen. 

Go forth, says the Deku Tree. Save us all.

He’s heard the words a thousand times before.

(She sings him a lullaby that night, and it’s enough.)

He returns to Farosh. The sword and its sheath are conspicuous against his back. 

Go, says Sir Orca, and do not look back.

Bring me back a souvenir! Aryll cries after him. Something really nice from the city!

He wraps cloth around the hilt of his sword, mounts his goddess-named horse, and goes.

He learns agility from the Zora (and compassion from Mipha). He learns strength from the Gorons (and laughter from Daruk). He learns stealth from the Sheikah (and a plethora of legends). He learns accuracy from the Rito (and how much he’d love to fly, one day). He learns to stay far, far away from tall women from the Gerudo (he only went as far as the Bazaar).

When his adventurer’s heart is satisfied, he goes to Castle Town. 

(Not home. Home is up north, with fog-twisted trees and laughing children and grumpy swordmasters.)

—————

When Zelda is fifteen, the Divine Beasts are uncovered. She has never been more thrilled in her life.

According to the legends, Champions must be chosen. Every worthy warrior from the four nations with a Beast travels to their locations, each hoping to be the one.

After months of searching, the Champions are discovered.

Zelda looks over the verdicts.

Crown Princess Mipha of the Zora.

Daruk of the Gorons.

Chieftess Urbosa of the Gerudo (oh, how she smiles at that name!).

Revali of the Rito.

Royal duties for once take precedence over prayer. Zelda, as the Goddess-Blood Princess, is to travel to every Champion, greet them, and invite them to a royal ceremony in a few months’ time.

She tries to hide her thrill in front of her father, who judges her to be appropriately somber. 

She goes first to the Zora, where she meets Crown Princess Mipha. At first, Zelda worries she’ll crack under the pressure, but the stance with which she holds her trident proves otherwise. It’s not long before they’re giggling like schoolgirls, and Zelda wonders if this is what her mother and Urbosa felt like.

She travels then to the Gorons, and meets Daruk. He nearly crushes her hands with his own when he goes to shake them, and she marvels at the lack of any formality. And then enjoys it, for as long as she can. By the end of the day, she has three uncut diamonds in her pockets, has held a pickax, and was paraded around on Daruk’s left shoulder like a child too small to see a show. 

The road to Rito Village is long and jolting, but everyone makes it in one piece. Revali is already waiting for her there. She finds him to be proud and arrogant and even cruel, but she knows the feeling of pride all too well (the Sheikah slate lays on her desk still). She watches his demeanor shift entirely when speaking to a fluffy-feathered child, and she sees past his bluster. He too sees something in her, and it fills her with an emotion she can’t quite explain when he calls her scientific achievements ‘admirable.’ 

She does nothing but shake on the way to Gerudo Town. She remembers little of Chieftess Urbosa, but bits and pieces remain—bold grins and red hair and safina tea.

When she arrives, the sun burning on her cheeks, Urbosa stands from her throne. She looks with wide eyes for a moment... and then gathers Zelda into her arms. Zelda nearly falls to her knees.

(It’s been nine years since anyone’s hugged her like that.)

Urbosa calls her ‘little bird,’ and braids her hair in intricate patterns. She’s rougher than her mother, less dignified, and her hands are so much less gentle, but she fills a void that Zelda didn’t even know was there. Perhaps it is enough.

—————

When Link arrives at Castle Town, he’s sixteen, and the knights think that the ghost of their old Captain is back to haunt them. Link has hard edges and cobalt eyes, and he is quiet but his blade is as deadly as his wit.

And then they watch him climb the walls of the castle just to see the view, and they see it’s just the Captain’s son come triumphantly back to his birthplace. 

He deflects a Guardian’s laser with a pot lid. He swears up and down it was just dumb luck, but the King won’t have it. He’s knighted immediately, and he’s the youngest to have the title in ten thousand years. 

He unveils his sword for the royal family after the Princess returns from her trip across the kingdom.

Her eyes are brittle and cold and aurora-green, and he knows them.

He says nothing.

(He hasn’t since he arrived. Words feel wrong on his tongue, and they always have.)

He finds he prefers his silence, oddly enough. Nobody expects you to respond, so you don’t have to. 

—————

The Princess finds herself full of vile bitterness towards her Hero. How dare he waltz into her castle with the Master Sword like he picked it up out of the garbage? How dare he look at her without expression, without words, and bow to her like she means something?

She sees his forest-sky eyes and she knows them. She doesn’t want to.

She says nothing, because she’s decided he deserves nothing from her. 

—————

The Triforce is nearly whole.

—————

The Calamity seethes beneath the castle.

—————

Malice courses through it.

—————

It is coming.

—————

**Author's Note:**

> _If you should die, dilly dilly, as it may hap,_   
>  _You shall be buried, dilly dilly, under the tap._   
>  _Who told you so, dilly dilly, pray tell me why?_   
>  _That you might drink, dilly dilly, when you are dry._


End file.
